Simon Henneman // Sunday, Jan. 31st at the Racer Sessions

8pm-10pm / Opening set by guitarist and composer Simon Henneman

Why do I make music? This is a question I’ve struggled with for many, many years( and hope to struggle with for much longer!). A small piece of the puzzle for me is that when it’s going well making music is for me a sense of flow and a feeling of being part of something much larger than myself. I believe that music can be transformative.

“The unconventional performance of “Out of This World” had a deep impact on at least one listener. Teenage Seattle drummers Gregg Keplinger and Dave Guilland had snuck in to the Penthouse to get a glimpse of Elvin Jones, hiding behind a coat rack near the front door to avoid the bouncer. Three years earlier, Keplinger had been moved to tears by the beauty in Coltrane’s first recorded rendition of “Out of This World.” The band onstage was still developing the song, but with more energy and abandon. Keplinger hyperventilated, he later recalled. The slower tempo, wider harmonic backdrop, and freer solo improvisation, he said, was “blowing his brain cells apart.” - by Steve Griggs from the Seattle Weekly talking about the John Coltrane quartet performance in Seattle that produced the record “Live in Seattle”

And Gregg will tell you that for him that was it, he was never the same after that. For me one of the well defined transformative moments was hearing Eric Dolphy’s bass clarinet solo on the track “What Love” from the Mingus at Antibes record, I was driving and had to pull the car over the first time I heard it, and it changed forever who I am. Just being able to hopefully create a little speck of transformation for myself and other people is why I play music. It’s way too easy for me to lose sight of that and get hung up on details that are just not as important and are usually distracting me from actually creating music. Why do you make music? What are your transformative moments with music?